It's not at all startling if you're versed in some of the more recent developments in evolutionary theory. That evolution is simply a matter of 'random changes' is now a bit of an outdated notion, although it still serves well in serving as a bulwark against creationist or theological views, which is why, perhaps, it is so often repeated. In any case, there's a ton that could be said here, but I'll take as representative this statement from Jablonka and Lamb's magnificent book, Evolution in Four Dimensions: — StreetlightX

For a refutation of Jablonka et. al. see http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10539-006-9033-y

I challenge you to find a single case in which an adaptive change in an organism—or any change that has been fixed in a species—rests on inheritance that is not based on changes in the DNA.

What would you mean by "systematically affected"? Doesn't consistency in the world fulfill the conditions of "systematic"? So if the world behaves in a consistent way, as it appears to according to the laws of physics, and the way that the world behaves affects the evolutionary process, wouldn't this constitute "systematically affected"? — Metaphysician Undercover

There exists no mechanism by which the environment can program the genome. Neither the organism that the genome encodes, nor the wider environment, contains the knowledge or capacity to alter the genetic encoding in any systematic way.

According to neo-Darwinism, whatever physical process brings about variation, there is no mechanism by which that physical process can be systematically affected by the environment.

We can dispense with ill defined notions such as "chance" or "randomness" and can even admit processes that may indeed turn out not to be "random" so long as we do not allow the environment to systematically affect the genome.

The confusion arises when we create systems that model the theory. Typically "randomness" is employed to ensure the absence of systematic feedback, but in doing so, we use a sledgehammer to crack a nt.

Michael Nielsen wrote the standard book on quantum computing. Here's his take on computability.

http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/interesting-problems-the-church-turing-deutsch-principle/

It has been PROVED that quantum mechanics is computable - read the paper!

As a hint, only the computable functions are required to express quantum mechanics. Gödel himself defined these computable (recursive) functions.

So, a computer can calculate without ordering causality? Seems fishy to me. Anyway, what about quantum wave function's? They seem to obey causality in some sense, as for computability, I don't think so — Question

As I mentioned already, causality does not fit very well with any physical law, because they are time symmetric. According to physical law, the future causes the past just as much as the past causes the future.

Causality, whatever you mean by that word, is an abstraction, used by humans to tell stories. I think I may have mentioned that previously also. What Quantum Mechanics gives us is Unitarity. If you don't know what that means, maybe you could look it up. Information is preserved!

It would be very easy to prove me wrong about physics and computability. Simply state the physical theory that is non-computable, show how nothing can be computed from it, and perhaps indicate the point of it.

It so happens that about 30 years ago, it was proved that quantum mechanics is a computable theory.
http://www.daviddeutsch.org.uk/wp-content/deutsch85.pdf

General Relativity is a theory of space-time. It is a fully deterministic theory. Reality is a static block-universe.

This is incompatible with a theory that relies on "chance", "randomness", or stochastic processes.

If by "chance" or "randomness" you *mean* the absence of design, well of course design is absent under neo-Darwinism.

The notion of chance within Darwinian evolutionary theory is as much a myth as the notion of gravity is in Einstein's general theory of relativity. And the attempt to deny its essential role is honestly not worthy of serious discussion. What is worth debating for a variety of reasons is the extent chance plays in evolution. — Baden

Apart from the fact that there is no force of gravity in GR. Instead objects follow geodesics in space-time in the *absence* of a force.

Also, if you invoke "chance", though I'm sure you only have a vague idea what you might mean by the word, you are proposing that Evolution and General Relativity are incompatible theories.

Evolution does not require "chance", rather it demands no systematic mechanism for variation exists, which by the way, maintains the theory's compatibility with GR.

Suppose that someone wanted to prove, through empirical evidence, something like chance, or the randomness of random genetic mutations, how would one proceed? — Metaphysician Undercover

But neo-Darwinism does not require "randomness" or "chance", but simply that there is no mechanism for systematically feeding back to the genome. It is essentially a mechanism of trial and error. How the trials are achieved is not specified beyond the fact that they are unrelated to the phenotype, the success or failure of the animal. How the error correction is performed *is* specified.

You seem to be forgetting that nothing can be proved in science. Testing for "randomness" in any particular field is fraught with difficulty. I believe that any finite sequence of numbers will fail some test of randomness.

Anyway, it is not just change neo-Darwinism has to explain, but stability. Don't scientists believe that the Nautilus has remained unchanged for 500 million years?

1000 nouns won't get anyone very far; one needs verbs, particularly forms of TO BE and TO HAVE. — Bitter Crank

Can't have been a sheepdog then, or any normal dog who knows how to sit, stay, fetch etc.

Some dogs, parrots, and primates have learned word lists, for instance. They can learn that the word "shoe" matches a shoe-shaped object. This genius border collie in Germany managed to learn 1000+ words (each for a unique object, which it was able to fetch on the basis of the spoken word]. — Bitter Crank

1000+ words is more than sufficient to ask many questions. In all animal "studies" of language acquisition, despite the most fervent bias among researchers, no animal has ever been reported to have asked a question.

This is because, despite their "skill", none possesses the idea that the researcher exists as an individual being, let alone could she be a repository of knowledge. The animal does not even know it exists.

Indeed...

... proof that postions can refine.

Meow! — Mayor of Simpleton

Neo-Darwinism requires the mechanism of variation to be non-systematic. So, no there can be no "causes yet undiscovered" only particular historical accidents.

Epigenetics aside? You mean, the rule holds as long as we put aside the vast quantity of evidence which goes against the rule. OK, so "that isn't true", so long as we ignore the overwhelming evidence that it is true. That doesn't make sense to me, does it make sense to you? — Metaphysician Undercover

Epigenetics aside, because there is a huge amount of confusion and misunderstanding associated with it. Neo-Darwinism may indeed have evolved a mechanism by which certain changes to offspring are brought about as a temporary measure for a generation or two.

Under neo-Darwinism, the requirement is that there is no systematic mechanism of variation. That is all "chance" and "randomness" mean in this case. In fact sexual reproduction is a mechanism of introducing non-systematic variation.

The issue here is not "design" specifically, because design implies some external agent as the designer and cause. What I am addressing is the cause which is within oneself. Do creatures, through their own choice of actions, consequently behaviour, influence the physical traits of their future offspring, as Jean Lamarck assumes? I believe that choice in sexual reproduction is an extension of this principle. Choice in this activity is a valid example of how one's behaviour influences the genetic traits of the offspring. — Metaphysician Undercover

Lamarck (and Darwin by the way) assumed that traits acquired by parents were transmitted to their young. Epigenetics aside, we know that isn't true. But of course genetically determined successful behaviours and preferences are selected for, and sometimes, when preferences are the main selection pressure you get peacocks etc.

I think there has been recent research that demonstrates that for a large number of species, males are subject to immense selection effects by females. Of course in all non-human animals, it is the genes of females who have chanced upon the right selection criteria that propagate. The behaviour of the females being genetically determined.

There is no such thing as a non-computable physical law. — tom


Can you explore that further or point me to some sources stating that? I'd appreciate it. — Question

What would it even mean for a physical law to be non-computable? Classical mechanics takes a good stab at it, achieving non-computability-in-practice. This is because of phenomena such as sensitive dependence on initial conditions, leading to chaos - two features absent in quantum mechanics. Under quantum mechanics, systems prepared in similar states will evolve in a similar way. The theory is linear.

How would you even describe a physical law that was non-computable-in-principle? How would you test it? What would it be for?

As I have mentioned already, QM via the Bekenstein bound tells us that reality is a finite state machine. Any calculation that you have ever performed, a computer has ever performed, or any finite state machine will ever perform, is expressible in Presburger arithmetic, which is consistent, compete, and decidable.

One thing is for sure: if you want non-computability, you won't find it in QM.

Well, as I mentioned, you have Unitarity, which is an especially restrictive form of determinism. Even black-holes cannot destroy information!

There is no such thing as a non-computable physical law. Specifically, quantum mechanics is computable. Now, it may be the case that some non-computable aspect of Reality exists, but that would be nothing to do with QM. It would be a new physics that not only could we not express, but we could never discover. A contrary view is held by Penrose who maintains that some new physics exists, and that because it operates in the brain, humans and not computers can find it. He is an expert in QM among other things, so he knows that QM cannot provide the non-computability that you and he are looking for.

Your hunch has been proved to be wrong.

Does causality exist in any fundamental physical theory, or is an abstraction used by humans to tell stories? Fundamental theories are time-symmetric so work just as well forwards or backwards in time.

Quantum mechanics is Unitary - which is as conservative as you can get. It is a much more stringent condition than "causality"! It is also a local theory, which has been proved. Non-local theories exist, but none of these can reproduce the predictions of quantum theory.

You claim that physical phenomena don't obey the Principle of Sufficient Reason. I think it is more accurate to claim that physicists abandon that princliple when it suits.

In my mind, there seems to be a deep connection between quantum theory and the conclusions arrived at by Godel. — Question

It might be illuminating to discover what you think this deep connection might be, because on the face of it, there doesn't appear to be one.

Gödel's theorems are basically the discovery that most mathematical statements are undecidable. This is equivalent to Turing's discovery that almost all mathematical functions that exist logically cannot be computed by any program. The phrase "almost all" is justified by the fact that the set of all mathematical functions is uncountably infinite, whereas the set of all programs is countably infinite.

What has this got to do with quantum mechanics? Quantum mechanics seems to state, via the Bekenstein bound, that reality is a finite state machine. A FSM is finite in two ways: first that the machine has only a finite set of states is available to it, and second that its clock is digital. Time seems to be continuous, but that doesn't matter so long as the FSM cannot see this continuity, which due to QM it cannot.

Now, I'm not entirely sure about this, but it could be that because reality is a finite state machine, then the laws of nature could be expressible eventually solely in Presburger arithmetic - i.e. Gödel's theorems would have no relevance to physical reality whatsoever.

This translates as know-how transmitted socially and not genetically. — unenlightened

Yes, the paper is called "Imitation as behaviour parsing" for a reason. Behaviours are transmitted between apes without understanding or intentionality. There is a set of behaviour primitives from which apes construct complex behaviours. Apes cannot learn new primitives as that would require the creation of knowledge that is not in their genome.

A couple of examples are that apes can pick up a stone, but they cannot orient the stone. They also cannot follow pointing, which dogs can.

Humans are not constrained in this way, obviously.

Humans display the highest known level of intelligence that leads to a high level of conceptual self awareness that separates us from the rest of the animals. — Jamesk

But it can't be simply that intelligence leads to self awareness, or computers would be self aware, groups of people qua groups would be self aware, and clever animals would also be self-aware.

Even if our brains do function on some level in similar ways to other species or computers, what separates us is this ability to learn seemingly without boundaries. — Jamesk

But computers and animals don't create knowledge. To create knowledge, you need to be self-aware.

Is the Turing test a test for the subjective experience that (hopefully) we all agree determines consciousness? Or is it a measure of whether or not some AI can fool people with its behaviors? — anonymous66

The cognitive aspects of an artificial general intelligence cannot be tested for simply behaviorally i.e. via its inputs and outputs.

And now we have to talk about evidence again. Anything whatsoever that is evident to me is, if the term means anything, conveyed through my qualia. My qualia are my evidence but they cannot be evidence of your qualia, let alone a dog's. — unenlightened

There is clear evidence that other humans possess qualia, the most striking of which is the creation of scientific and other knowledge, also art and culture. At a more mundane level, human meme transfer requires qualia. We extract the rule, the meaning from a message, and discard the sequence of actions that comprise the message.

On the contrary, we know from animal studies that they do not extract meaning from actions, but simply behaviour-parse. Here's a wealth of information on animal learning!

The 2003 classic "Byrne, R W (2003) Imitation as behaviour parsing" is the one to read.

Animals do not create knowledge, but exist entirely within the constraints of their genetic programming.

Searle already answered this question. Even if the robot can seemingly 'display' consciousness, it only a syntactic display of consciousness lacking and semantic understanding as shown in the 'china room' theory — Jamesk

A couple of problems with Searle's Chinese Rooom are that it is unphysical - i.e. it cannot in reality be performed, and that it is not computationally universal - i.e. it is irrelevant.

Later, I make a distinction for philosophical purposes between 'awareness' and 'consciousness' exactly for the purpose of clarifying the difference between human and animal. This is a stipulated distinction and not a matter of common usage. I am exactly not claiming that dogs are aware of being aware, but merely that they are aware, when they aren't in common parlance 'unconscious'. — unenlightened

Are you sure that dogs are aware rather than just conscious? If by "awareness" you mean they possess qualia - i.e. they not only detect a particular shade of grey (dogs may not be the best animal for this) but are also aware they are detecting it, there is no evidence for that or reason to suspect it beyond anthropomorphism. There is no evidence that non-human animals possess qualia, which seems to render them, by your definition, unaware.

When dealing with a casualty, the first-aider will typically squeeze an earlobe quite hard to see if they respond to pain. A response is taken as evidence of consciousness. One never needs to ask, because any reply is always sufficient evidence - 'no' serves as well as 'yes' to confirm consciousness, and any question will likewise serve to elicit a response 'what's your name?' for example. Similarly, non-verbal responses are evidence of consciousness (or perhaps you prefer the term awareness here) in an animal such as a dog.

None of this is obtuse philosophical speculation. If you know how to use the word, it will be perfectly understandable.

In one's own case, there is likewise never a need to ask oneself. To be conscious is to be aware of being aware. If one asks oneself any question, one is already aware of being aware, and that question is therefore entirely superfluous. — unenlightened

I wouldn't be so sure you know how to use the word. A robot can be programmed to respond to pain stimulus in a certain way. Why would a dog be conscious and a robot not?

You then claim that to be conscious "is to be aware of being aware". Do you believe a dog is capable of that? How about a robot? There is certainly no evidence that dogs or any other non-human animal is "aware of being aware".

I have no idea what the correct technical terms are, but "consciousness", as in what we lose when we go to sleep, is certainly a property shared among higher animals. But "consciousness", as in the qualia that exist at a particular time, is uniquely human. They are distinct attributes.

It's not possible to account for quantum mechanics with randomness.

1.) What sentences is S deducible from, and what sentences can be deduced from S?
2.) Under what conditions is S true or false?
3.) How is S to be verified?
4.) What is the meaning of S? — darthbarracuda

Given general relativity as it was first published it seems.

1.)That GR is not deducible from any sentence.
2.)It is impossible to determine under what conditions GR is true.
3.)GR cannot be verified.
4.)At it's inception, the full meaning of GR was unknown, and still is.

So it seems that science is meaningless.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons that Logical positivism is dead.